by E. Archer
They did a circuit around the vault of color, but could find no exit. The gas had even expanded to fill in their entrance hole. “I wonder what we should do now,” Ralph said.
“I don’t know,” Cecil said crossly. “I wish she would show herself. I think I’ve done everything I was supposed to so far. I’ve been an admirable hero — why this rainbow chase?”
Ralph sat down on the gas. He realized it had been a long time since he had last rested. Sleepiness might be the wicked intention of all this, he suddenly realized — and surely it wasn’t a good idea to nap in a room full of magical gases.
Cecil pressed his face against a pale yellow swath of the wall. “I think I see solid ground on the other side,” he reported, “but I can’t be sure. It’s way too murky.”
“We can’t pass through, can we?” Ralph asked.
Cecil pushed with his fingertips, which sank into the misty edges of the gas and then stopped. “I don’t think so.” He blanched and put his hand over his mouth. “Ugh. I don’t feel too good, man.”
At which point Ralph temporarily lost concentration and, fittingly enough, passed gas. At first Cecil seemed not to notice, but then Ralph saw Cecil’s nose twitch as a luminous mixture of fragrant sea green gas floated up from the seat of Ralph’s jeans and diffused into the air.
The combination of embarrassment and pride Ralph always felt when he farted faded as he realized that he had farted in color. “It’s in us,” Ralph said, swiveling around. “The color is in us. We have to get out of here.”
Cecil smirked. “Agreed.”
Ralph joined Cecil at the wall, and together they pressed against it. But as their atoms continued to align with those of the gas, they couldn’t break through.
CHAPTER XXVI
Ralph was finding it harder and harder to think straight. A few minutes earlier, walking on gas had seemed most logical. Now he couldn’t help but revert to his old everyday way of thinking, and it started to seem a trifle odd. Very odd, actually. He gave Cecil’s arm a drunken punch. “Hey, bud. How are we even standing?”
And then, as soon as he said it, Ralph sank a foot into the gas. If he kept slipping, he realized, he would dash himself on the ballroom floor below.
“Crap,” Cecil said, and tugged at Ralph, pulling him back up easily. “Of course you can stand on it. It’s colored.”
“Oh yeah?” Ralph slurred. “Why does color mean you can stand? I don’t think it’s all that … clear.” He giggled and, as soon as Cecil released him, sank away. Cecil grabbed his shoulders just before Ralph slipped through to his death.
This time Cecil had to really heave to get Ralph back up, as he too had begun to merge into the floor. “Man,” Cecil said, “I can’t keep hauling you up if I start sinking, too.”
“Well, you can’t let me fall through. I’ll be a puddle on the ballroom floor. Splat splat splat.” Ralph giggled again.
“Shut up! Let me think —”
“Wait, I have an idea!”
We’ll never know what Ralph was thinking, because Cecil evidently had settled on his own idea first. He seized Ralph’s left arm and leg, spun around twice, and let go.
And, with a giant squiff of multicolored air, Ralph whooshed through the wall and landed in the next room.
This chamber had a solid stone floor, which hurt keenly for a second and provided sweet relief afterward.
“It’s a real room!” Ralph called. “Come on over.”
Cecil grunted in affirmation and then tumbled forward. The tricky part was that he fell through the gas floor and stumbled through the wall at equal speed. Ralph saw only his chest emerge, right at floor level. It looked as though a bust of Cecil had been placed in the corner.
Ralph grasped Cecil’s forearms and heaved. After a minute’s struggle, he and Cecil lay gasping on the solid stone.
“That was ridiculous. A rainbow gas room was not where my wish was supposed to lead. If I am going to die, it should be at the hands of an evil giant, something like that, but not this weirdness,” Cecil said.
They shared relief of being on a normal floor again, of breathing air that was as clear as air should be. Then Ralph looked closely at Cecil for the first time and laughed.
From chest down, Cecil was colored. Clothes, flesh, everything: a perfect rainbow.
Since there was nothing to do about this, Cecil and Ralph positioned themselves on either side of the only exit from the room, a plain door that had been fitted with a plaque:
Evil Duchess’s Secret Quarters — DO NOT ENTER.
(If You Must Enter, Please Extend Simple Courtesy of Knocking First.)
They clasped hands. “Ready?” Ralph asked. Cecil nodded.
“So,” Cecil said, drawing a big breath. Then he scratched his head. “Who’s going to knock?”
Ralph pushed open the door.
The Duchess was reclining on a throne at the opposite end of a large chamber, watching the entranceway with a fiendish yet disengaged glare, to all appearances bored at an execution. She wore a sheer white gown with a gold circlet around her waist.
“I suppose you think you’re going to stop me,” she said. “All that heroic nonsense.”
“Hello, Chessie,” Cecil said.
“Duchess.” Ralph bowed.
“Welcome to my Hall of Treasures.” Chessie gestured about her. Ralph saw that the chamber’s name was apt. Grand bookcases and curios cluttered the room and obscured the walls. They were filled to capacity with trinkets: porcelain elementals, stoneware ogres, matching griffon/hippogriff salt and pepper shakers, all lined three or four deep on bowing shelves.
“You will release the fairies you’ve been cruelly breeding!” Cecil proclaimed, in a tone that would have been most threatening had his voice not cracked at the end.
Chessie waved a hand. “Got it. But you’re ignoring all sorts of diplomatic procedures for these things.”
“The people say the kings who ruled this land before you were kind and just. They took only the fairies they needed. They were sporting — but you have been despotic! I will not bargain with you.”
“Despotic,” Ralph thought. Nice word.
Though she maintained her scowl, Chessie was unable to hide a shine of glee at how seriously Cecil was taking his wish. “Commerce is commerce. My kingdom is doing fantastically well, thanks to those fairies.” She sucked in her breath and stood up. “By ‘diplomatic procedures,’ I mean that you’re not supposed to go off ranting yet. There are some common niceties to observe first.”
“Oh.” Cecil bit his lip, then spoke up again. “What are these niceties? How would I observe them? If I decided to, of course.”
“Oh, a ‘how do you do, how have you been’ would have been nice. But beyond that, I have an offer to make that will render all of your bleating unnecessary.”
“I’m listening.”
“You would both make fantastic ornaments. Has anyone ever told you that?”
Cecil and Ralph shook their heads.
“I’ve been far too busy, you see. My collection hasn’t been updated in some time. So that’s the crux of it: I want to turn you into trinkets.”
“That’s your offer?” Ralph asked.
“No. And I will tolerate no more of your interference, Ralph. Let’s fast-forward past all your classless wheedling. I am speaking to my gallant nephew only. Now, Cecil, it is my grave duty to inform you that your older sister, precious Beatrice, has been transformed into one of these trinkets.”
“You’re lying,” Cecil said. But he obviously believed her. For that matter, Ralph believed her, too — Chessie had plenty of chances to be duplicitous before, yet had been remarkably up-front. This was the same woman, after all, who had so considerately given him advance notification of his own beheading.
“My offer is this: I allow you one guess as to which trinket is her. If you succeed, I will free her, you, Ralph, and all the fairies. Everyone! If you fail, however, you will become a figurine. Mother-of-pearl, I suspect.”
Chessie melted his sword so it bent over like a dandelion left in a jacket pocket. “Not a terrific idea.”
Cecil slapped his wilted sword to the ground and nodded solemnly. “I accept your challenge.”
Mustering up courage, Ralph put a restraining hand on Cecil’s shoulder. “Now Beatrice is involved?” he asked. “What in the world does she have to do with this wish? Chessie, you don’t sound like an evil duchess anymore. You sound like Chessie of Cheshire, Gert’s sister.”
“What’s the bloody difference?” Cecil spat.
“I think Cecil’s completed his quest, and I don’t think you’re being totally fair. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but it doesn’t feel right. I repeat: What does Beatrice have to do with Cecil’s wish? Why put her in jeopardy?”
“Beatrice was caught trying to sneak in,” Chessie sniffed. “She’s foregone all rights to complain about anything.”
The text message. Beatrice had come to try to rescue him.
“So you’ve punished her by turning her into a trinket?”
“Ralph! I warned you — there’s nothing holding me back from destroying you. There are centuries of wish precedents you know nothing about. I am in full rights to use an intruder as I see fit to raise the stakes of a wish. The Royal Narratological Guild gives full pre-authorization.”
“Fine. I at least demand the same opportunity to rescue Beatrice, should Cecil fail.”
“Absolutely not, lover boy. This scene is the culmination of billions of pounds sterling worth of narrative craft. I won’t have you fiddling with the poetry of Cecil’s wish.”
“You allowed me in here. You said I could help.”
“I did?” Chessie asked, surprised. She pointed a finger at Ralph, the manicured nail fizzing with blue magic, then some glimmer of her old earthly self flashed across her face and she shrugged and returned the finger to her lap. She scanned the thousands of trinkets and laughed. “Okay. Everyone gets a guess. But you risk the same penalty. And your statuette will be made out of dung.”
“You don’t need to do this for me,” Cecil said to Ralph. For a moment he seemed to have lost his new heroic proportions, and Ralph couldn’t resist slinging a comforting arm over his shoulder.
“I’ll be honored to,” Ralph said.
Cecil threw his arm off, and screwed his mottled face into proud disdain. “No! Seriously. I’m the hero here.”
“I’ll be happy not to interfere,” Ralph said. “You just have to guess correctly.”
Cecil stepped farther into the Hall of Treasures. The quantity of trinkets was boggling. Tens of thousands of pieces covered the chamber, stacked floor to ceiling, some as small as fingernails, some grazing the ceiling. Chessie reclined in her throne, her fingers gleefully hitched in her gold circlet.
Cecil began his slow circuit of the room.
To the typesetter’s delight, I will excise from this narrative Cecil’s lengthy choice-making. It lasted eleven and a half hours, long enough that Chessie lit the lanterns, baked and consumed a chicken with lemon glaze and porcini mushroom reduction, and invited Ralph to a game of Go Fish (which Chessie won, though Ralph suspected she cheated). The plot highlights of this half day include Cecil’s near choice of a porcelain dryad, and his near calamity of knocking a sandstone seahorse from a shelf.
Throughout it all, Cecil returned to one piece over and over. It was placed high enough that, when he finally chose it, he had to mount a rolling ladder to retrieve it. Cecil gingerly cradled the treasure as he passed down the rungs, and when he reached the bottom revealed to Ralph and Chessie a jade princess with real human hair coming from her head and twisted into a necklace, hair that was the very color of Beatrice’s.
CHAPTER XXVII
Cecil proffered his choice to Chessie.
She closed the pendant in her fist and shook her head. “No, sorry, that was the long-dead Contessa di Hourata. Sad story, really. Some creep made her into a perfume at the age of fourteen. Most clearly younger than Beatrice.”
And suddenly Cecil was gone, replaced by something shiny and no bigger than a child’s palm. It clattered to the floor. Ralph gingerly picked it up and saw a portrait of Cecil carved onto an oyster shell.
“I’ll summon Maudlin Décor to find a place for it later,” Chessie said. She watched Ralph as he walked to the center of the room. “I’m intrigued now,” she said. “Cecil’s lost. It happens every once in a while, kids make a wish that doesn’t pan out. Raises the heart rates of the rest of them. Technically I should call it a loss and let everyone go home.” She looked up as I made a “keep rolling” gesture from the catwalks high above. “But you … I have no idea what will happen now!” She suddenly squealed. “What suspense! This is more fun than I’ve had in years, years.”
Ralph choked. “You can’t kill Cecil!” he yelled. “After your own son died. Is this to make things even? How can you be so heartless?”
“Go on, don’t let me stop you: choose,” Chessie prattled on. “Do you like the display of chess pieces? Maybe she’s one of those. Let’s go take a peek.”
“Make it end. Where’s the exit?”
“The only way out is to finish Cecil’s wish. I’m giving you the same option I gave him. Find Beatrice.”
Ralph had watched Cecil as he examined the room, of course, and had considered every option along with him. I am happy to inform you that Ralph’s selection process was, therefore, blessedly brief. He brought over a wooden tiara, the perfect size for Beatrice’s head.
Chessie took it into her hands and scrutinized it. Then she shook her head, and Ralph, too, was turned into a statue.
She wasn’t lying about fashioning it out of dung. Since dung can’t see, we’re going to have to leave Ralph’s head and watch the scene that follows from the ceiling, where I’ve been directing and recording. Come with me.
Ralph’s incarnation was strangely lovely, a sort of scarab fashioned from some extinct animal’s ossified poo. Chessie picked up Ralph’s and Cecil’s figurines, and from our perch above she looked quite regal, like a true queen arranging the gifts of visiting dignitaries.
She placed them on a low shelf, then was suddenly struck by a fit of passion. She let out a maniacal howl and lifted the trinkets over her head, preparing to smash them into the floor.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Until, that is, she was interrupted by a high-pitched voice from the far side of the chamber.
“Stop!”
Chessie had no idea who this cheeky intruder was; all she saw was a little creature pertly rising into the air. We, however, recognize her as Prestidigitator. “Oh, do remove yourself,” Chessie said. “I’m busy destroying the heroes.”
Yes, Prestidigitator! She must have survived the bunny blast. She must have adventured through the keep to the highest floor. She must have passed through the ballroom and the rainbow gas chamber. She must have been in this hall the whole time, hiding above the door frame. She must have heard when Chessie said everyone present could have a guess, and she demanded hers.
Chessie held the trinkets high and considered dashing them against the floor, anyway. Then — for though she may have been diabolical, she was a stickler for rules — she lowered them. “Make it quick,” she said. She didn’t shrug this time; she licked her lips nervously. (Chessie knew what often happened to fairy-tale villains once a third guess was made.)
As the newcomer zipped to the center of the room, Chessie kept prattling. “Blast. This is truly annoying. I’m going to end up with yet another crystal fairy figurine, and I’ve already got thousands of fairies. Literally. Thousands. Bor-ing.”
Prestidigitator didn’t stop at the bookcases. She didn’t stop at the curios. She didn’t stop at the jewelry cabinets. No, she zipped right up to the Duchess herself.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Chessie said.
“I’m saving the day,” she squeaked.
“That’
s ridiculous. Even if you had a weapon, which I have divined you don’t, I’m protected by spectral armor. Even if I hadn’t already disarmed all enemy magic in this chamber, all you would be able to produce is a sparkle. I’m most curious as to how you’re planning to ‘save the day.’ ”
The little creature eased closer and closer until she was hovering in the air right before Chessie, her lips almost grazing her cheek.
“What are you doing?” Chessie said anxiously, uncertain how naughty this fairy might be.
Prestidigitator gripped Chessie’s golden circlet. “I choose this belt thing,” she said.
“Nonsense,” Chessie said, drawing back. “I never said objects on my very person were permitted.”
But Prestidigitator held on tight, flapping in front of Chessie as the duchess began to dash about the room. “I don’t care,” she tinkled. “It’s in your chamber, and I choose this belt thing.”
“But you can’t,” Chessie wailed.
But she could and she did. And no matter how evil a duchess might be, a fantastic promise is a fantastic promise.
Cecil and Ralph were suddenly sitting on the floor again, human and whole, smelling only faintly like the sea and poo, respectively. They glanced about dazedly, then shouted with relief. For Beatrice was sprawled on the floor between them. She was dazed but healthy, staring at them open-mouthed. In the transformation her jeans rode high enough on her legs to display the black butterflies she had inked on her ankle days before.
The golden circlet, which had sported an engraved representation of a sullen girl’s face, an engraving that only the smallest eyes could see, had vanished entirely.